Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 23, 4 June 1903, Page 17

Notes

A Fishy Tale

A. travelling agent of the Bible Society has been telling some droll ' histfory ' at Gisborne lately, if we may credit a report of his remarks which appeared in a recent l^sue of the ' Gisborne Times.' 'Ho stated,' says the report, ' that fnc yeais previous he held a meeting at Naples, where a number of Italian ministers in connection with the Y\esleyan Church conducted a meeting in tho Italian language on Trotestant lines, singing Protestant hymns close to the dungeon in which 40 years previous many had been incarcerated and suffered lingering deaths on account of their possessing Bibles.' Tho talo about people going through -\arious stages of martrydom for merely having Bibles in their possession is a local application ol an old and fishy legend which has done such good service among the gobemouches in tho past that it is not likely to be lightly relinquished. But we rather think that the level 1 of general intelligence in New Zealand is somewhat too high to receive fables of this sort with anything more than the smiling incredu-

lity which one extends to such ' historic ' classics as Baron Munchausen's adventures and the story of Valentine and Orson. • We cannot say who created this bit of ' history ' about the Naples of some five and forty years ago. But he might, at least, have given it a more plausible look. It is customary, in this particular variety of ' history,' to place the scene in a far-off land— Southern Italy, Mexico, and Peru happen just now to be the vogue — and to omit names, precise dates-,, and all other ciicum&lanccs that would facilitate investigation by persons gifted with an inconvenient degree of curiosity. It is, of course, quite possible that some street-preachers may have been legally condemned and imprisoned in Naples for having been guilty of coarse and inflammatory public attacks on the religion of the people, like those that aroused such indignant feeling among Catholics and decent Protestants during the past few years in Arklow, Limerick, and Sligo, and drew down such vigorous condemnation from the judicial Bench. But the story that people in Naples were ' incarcerated and suffered lingering deaths on account of their possessing Bibles ' is merely ' a fairy tale of a far-off land.'

A Famine

A cable message published in our secular contemporaries a few days ago runs as follows : — ' Famine is causing terrible suffering in So*uth China. Thirty thousand women and children have been sold into slavery since February.' China holds the melancholy pre-emi-nence of being the country that, of all others, has suffered most from the ravages of famine. The great famine of 1877-1878 swept off, according to the best estimates, no fewer than 9,500,000 persons in North China — or two and a half times more than the total population of Australasia — and left several millions more a mere 'death's undress of skin and bone.' India comes close up to China in the magnitude of its sufferings from famine. Even now portions of its teeming population are suffering the pangs of want. Over a million persons died of the long, slow agony of famine in India in 1877. The famine of 1896-1897 cost no fewer than 2,500,000 lives. The famine of 1900 afflicted about a quarter of all that vast country, resulted in a money loss of over £50,000,000, the death of many millions of cattle, and the loss of an untold number "of lives. Famino problems, at least on their preventive side, ha\e scarcely received serious study from the age that has ' achieved ' Mauser and Lee-Metford rifles and quick-firing cannon And, despite all our progress and the spread of our communications, we are almost as helpless nowadays to prevent serious suffering and loss of life as our forefathers were under the more difficult conditions that prevailed in the middle ages.

Back to the Fold

The fathcily care extended by the present Pope io the Eastern Christians outside the true Fold has f i om time to time resulted in the return of considerable numbers of schismatics to Catholic unity. Wo take the following further information in point from the London ' Tablet ' of April 18 : ' The Creek Catholic Church has. according to the " Missions Catholiq,ues," just made what is described as a veritable conquest in the conversion en masse of more than fifteen thousand sepaiatod Greeks belonging to the districts of Ackar, ITosu, and Salita. The decision by which theso people have al>r jured their errors and returned to the bosom of the Church was taken some time ago, when a deputation was sent to Mgr. Boumani, Greek Catholic Melchite, J?i shop of Tripoli, to petition that they might be received '

The French Kulturkampf

The war against religion in Franco goes gaily on Three and thirty years ago the Go\ eminent of the country enteiod ' with a light heai t ' upon a campaign against Prussia F^erythmg was declared to bo in full readiness, down to the last button upon the gaiter of the last soldier, and the cry was : 'To Berlin ' ' 'Wo know the lesult. A stronger power, with 'the Man of Blood and Iron ' at its head, failed to carry out a war against Catholicism in Germany. The new Kulturkampf in France is likewise sine to end in failure. The effects of proscribing and banishing- the religious Orders as if their members were noxious wild beasts, a.ro already beginning to be felt. ' Heartrending-,' says the ' Catholic Times,' ' are the accounts of the scenes caused by the expulsions from monasteries and convents in France, A correspondent who has been a witness of what is taking place declares that it would be difficult to exaggerate

the desolation caused by the persecution. Mr. Richard Davey, the well-known writer, informs us that ho has just received a letter from a celebrated French author who has been visiting the Grand Chartreuse, and his experience is that the distress in the neighborhood is piteous. Hundreds have been ruined, and nobody will gain by a measure which is the result of mere fanaticism. The Grand Chartreuse has spent over £70,000 a year in acts of benevolence. From all parts of the country touching incidents are reported. One of th© saddest has occurred at Curricrc, in a school for deaf mutes founded and maintained by the liberality of the Umitreux. Brother Leufroy was in the midst of the children bidding them good-bye when gendarmes arrived to command, in the name of the Government, that the institution be closed. As the officers entered, the Brother, who was deeply moved, staggered and fell, never to rise again. His career on earth closed before the closing of the school that was so dear to. him. We are glad to observe that the Bishop of Quimper has not been intimidated by the suppression of the stipends of 28 priests for having used the Breton language m teaching the catechism. The priesta of the diocese of Quimper are, by the Bishop's directions, to continue to preach and teach in French when the hearers are French ; in French and Breton when they are mixedand in Breton alone when the auditory is exclusively